Recognize

Defining Emotional Abuse

Gaining an understanding of emotional abuse is complicated for many reasons. Several different names are often used interchangeably to refer to the same kind of abuse. These include emotional abuse, mental abuse and psychological abuse. Another complication is that there isn’t one accepted definition of emotional abuse. A quick search on the internet will show quite a few different definitions, all slightly different but sharing the same major theme:  An ongoing process where one person systematically diminishes and then destroys the inner life of another.

Emotional abuse is unique in the way it damages people, because it literally wounds a person’s soul. It isn’t physical. All of the damage is done internally. There are several different threads that make up the most widely accepted definitions that, when combined can help create a more extensive definition of emotional abuse:

It may include verbal aggression, lies, intimidation, manipulation, and humiliation in order to gain control over the person being abused. This usually unfolds as a pattern of behavior over time which aims to diminish another person’s sense of identity, dignity and self-worth. This often results in anxiety, confusion, depression, suicidal thoughts or behaviors and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the person (male or female) being abused.

Now allow me to unpackage that further to help create a window into the world of someone being emotionally abused. For many people, the concept of emotional abuse is difficult to comprehend because it can encompass so many different toxic behaviors. These include:

Blaming

Shaming

Insults

Name calling

Put-downs

Sarcasm

Intimidation

Manipulation

Infantilization

Gaslighting

Sabotage

Silent treatment

Trivializing

Triangulation

Scapegoating

Blame-shifting

Projection

Ranking and comparing

Refusal to ever be pleased

Arbitrary and unpredictable inconsistency

Threatening harm

Forced isolation

Some of these behaviors can occur in a healthy relationship, such as using sarcasm and mildly poking fun since these are components of a good sense of humor. But when they are used with malicious intent, these behaviors can be extremely cutting, especially when disguised as affection or an innocent remark.

Not only is the list of emotional abuse tactics incredibly long, but they can be used in combination and intensity, overtly and covertly, to wreak havoc on the emotions of the person on the receiving end of such behavior.  This brings us to another aspect that complicates emotional abuse: It can look different in every relationship. Some abusers can be very aggressive, with a lot of yelling, blaming and threatening behavior. Other abusers will use more subtle forms of abuse such as gaslighting, pouting, minimizing, nasty looks and the silent treatment to gain and exert control. The poster child, hall of fame abusers will often incorporate both tactics to get what they want.  This is what I personally experienced.

Regardless of the type of tactics used, one thing is for certain. Emotional abuse is rarely a random or a singular event. Instead, it occurs over time as a pattern of behavior that is sustained and repetitive. This particular characteristic of emotional abuse helps explain why it’s so complicated and so dangerous.

Even if you’re the smartest, most confident and observant person in the world, emotional abuse can be so gradual that you don’t realize what’s happening until you’re deeply affected by it. It can often be months or even years before you realize the extent of the abuse, especially if the abuse is more covert and subtle. Your self-esteem is steadily chipped away and eroded until your self-doubt becomes so paralyzing that you only have a vague sense that something is wrong.

Unlike physical abuse, the wounds and subsequent scars of each act of emotional abuse are often invisible. This can have devastating and long-term effects on the victims of abuse, leaving a tremendous amount of damage in its wake that isn’t obvious for most people to see. Outside of tears or withdrawal, you would be hard pressed to easily see any wounds on someone whose self-identity has just been annihilated. The destruction sustained from emotional abuse is almost impossible to picture, measure or understand if it hasn’t happened to you.

It takes most victims a long time to understand that their sadness, confusion, anxiety, frustration, depression, suicidal thoughts or PTSD is the result of a carefully orchestrated assault to gain control and obtain the things the abuser desires from the victim. And most abusers are experienced and are extremely good at what they do. And for those of us who have the distinct pleasure of being on the receiving end of the barrage of abuse, it can leave you confused, numb, shattered and feeling absolutely worthless.

What is truly heartbreaking, is it can be incredibly easy for most people to misattribute the damage caused by emotional abuse to some other cause such as family stress, basic worries, indecisiveness, lack of sleep etc. which all can be as a result of the abuse. Emotional abuse, like any other form of cruelty, thrives in the darkness when no one observes, understands, discusses, or recognizes it.

But there is one other aspect that most people fail to connect the emotional abusers. And that is that most emotional abusers suffer from one of the four Cluster B personality disorders. Whether your abuser suffers from Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic or Narcissistic Personality Disorder; gaining a firm understanding of the specific behaviors behind each disorder will help you to recognize the behavior, reject the lies, respond to the extremely toxic behavior and ultimately recover and heal from it.

It is my goal and hope to shine a light on the risks and devastation of emotional abuse so that others will not have to suffer the way I and millions of other survivors have suffered. And for those of you who have, it is my goal through my books and this website to help you heal and enjoy the life you not only desire but deserve.